Van Loon's Geography

by Hendrik Willem van Loon

Shield Press, Pub Date :2014-02-01 194 Chinese Golden Shield Press "collection Loon's book is a masterpiece. In the book, the authors discuss the geography of the world, no longer limited to a description of the Earth's...

Genres: History, Nonfiction

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian and journalist.

Born in Rotterdam, he went to the United States in 1903 to study at Cornell University. He was a correspondent during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He later became a professor of history at Cornell University (1915-17) and in 1919 became an American citizen.

From the 1910s until his death, Van Loon wrote many books. Most widely known among these is The Story of Mankind, a history of the world especially for children, which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922. The book was later updated by Van Loon and has continued to be updated, first by his son and later by other historians.

However, he also wrote many other very popular books aimed at young adults. As a writer he was known for emphasizing crucial historical events and giving a complete picture of individual characters, as well as the role of the arts in history. He also had an informal style which, particularly in The Story of Mankind, included personal anecdotes.

Reviews

[Shouting Owls · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the beginning i need to apologize for my English, for i am a fresh graduate from a foreign language school in Nanjing, China. As you can see, i am still struggling with this newly-learnt language. I read this book in the purpose of learning English, also because this book ,together with Tolerance(also written by Vanloon),is so famous in China. However, after reading it, i find it extremely perplexing to understand why so many chinese like it: it is completely EUROCENTRIC.
Firstly, the writer takes pity on we Asians in a hypocritical way. "In the price of our recent technical inventions, we may loudly boast of 'our great Western Progress', but that much-counted progress of the west is merely a continuation of the progress that was begun in the east." Such kind of sentences are found everywhere in the book, although seemingly he is praising us, I just feel his over-loaded patriotism and proud as a westerner. Same phenomenon happens in the chapter talking about China, I know he tries to show respect to China, but his sense of superiority is still so obvious. His attitude is like when a wealthy man pitying a begger.By the way, he is really ignorant about our history, which I can understand putting him in the historical background, but i still recommend foreign readers not to take this chapter seriously.
He also equates modernisation to westernisation. I am so sorry that I do not have the book on hand so I cannot find any examples.
Lastly, I just want to show my discontent to the title: the discovery of Asia—in his view, we only come into play when we influnece the Europe.
Anyway, I can understand his prejudices as a 20—century white man. I admit China was really a kind of poor and cloistered at that time, too. I just wonder why we chinese also like him.We even honour him as the master of humanism. Maybe, we are just too ignorant about European history that we really think he knows surprisingly a lot, or maybe, we are just fogged by the enthusiasm of "westernization".

[Travis Brainerd]

The book starts with a long introduction on Earth's astronomical origins. While promising to explain geography from an anthropocentric perspective, van Loon merely lists facts and his own lines of wit. It feels amateurish (including the sketches, which often feel out of place). Considering the rise of fascism and WWII around the corner, it was obsolete before its release. Although he appears to stand against humanity's worst crimes, he utilizes racist stereotypes (referring to Asians as 'slant eyed') and awkwardly claims some people could make Berlin into a new Jerusalem... in 1932. WTF?

For full disclosure, I stopped reading about halfway through, after his banal take on England.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my dads book, given to him at age 8 in 1938. I recently found elevation views of continents he did in Van Loon’s style. Very cool. Imagined him reading this book and seeing why he insists the Missouri and Mississippi are a joint river.

Does this make the egregious racism less noticeable? Nope. The entire chapter on Africa is horrendous. When focusing on the Americas, he laments the deaths of native cultures bur says, well that’s what happens when the superior people come.

So it’s been read and I’ll keep it for sentimental reasons.

[Sarah B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a perfect book, but incredible considering it was written in 1932. Also, it made me look at maps and google cities and countries for "the rest of the story" (i.e. what's happened since 1932), and I enjoyed that.

[Mwenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun to read this 1930s take on the world, although it definitely must be taken with a grain of salt and not expected to be an academic work.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE plus side is that this book greatly forwards understanding
of why things got to be as they were, or are, or will be from a lot
more than just a geography point of view.
At 500 pages it is rather long, slow read. Although there are lots
of diagrams, which could have been more coordinated with the
text to increase efficiency of perception, though they do promote
the idea of simplification to get true knowledge.
My edition was published in 1937 before World War II, and
copyrighted 1932, so you might think that it is out of date, rather
than timeless.
Per what is available on Amazon books,
there are editions in 1932, 1933, 1935, 1936, 1940, 1952
and in a Chinese & English version in 2009, 2010, 2011 so somebody
realizes the value of this book. Kind of like reading the encyclopedia
and coming across some amazing gems of explanation, so basic that
you wonder why they are not taught in schools.
(Note there is a dust cover picture of the book on Amazon.)
Full title and author of the book is VAN LOON'S GEOGRAPHY,
THE STORY OF THE WORLD WE LIVE IN by Hendrik Willem Van Loon

[Anna]

The most fun you will have reading about Geography. Even so, it got pretty dry the last few chapters.

[Ila]

《房龙地理》英文版，中文版看的都辛苦